Publications
Effect of perceived injustice-targeted pain neuroscience education compared with biomedically focused education in breast cancer survivors: a study protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial (BCS-PI trial) KU Leuven University of Antwerp Hasselt University Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Repeated exposure to aversive sensations differentially affects neural gating and bodily perception KU Leuven
Habituation to bodily sensations is highly relevant for the experience of chronic bodily symptoms, but the neural mechanisms behind diminished habituation are currently unclear. One potentially relevant mechanism is neural gating (NG), reflected as the short-term suppression of cortical responses to redundant stimuli. We investigated the effects of repeated exposure to aversive sensations on NG and subjective perception in 91 healthy adults, by ...
Expiratory-gated transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) does not further augment heart rate variability during slow breathing at 0.1Hz KU Leuven
As cardiac vagal control is a hallmark of good health and self-regulatory capacity, researchers are seeking ways to increase vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) in an accessible and non-invasive way. Findings with transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) have been disappointing in this respect, as its effects on vmHRV are inconsistent at best. It has been speculated that combining taVNS with other established ways to ...
Effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on P300 magnitudes and salivary alpha-amylase during an auditory oddball task KU Leuven
Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is a non-invasive neurostimulation technique that is thought to modulate noradrenergic activity. Previous studies have demonstrated inconsistent effects of taVNS on noradrenergic activity, which is possibly due to insufficient statistical power, suboptimal stimulation parameter settings, and data collection procedures. In this preregistered within-subject experiment, 44 healthy ...
Brain mediators of negative affect-induced physical symptom reporting in patients with functional somatic syndromes KU Leuven Hasselt University
Functional somatic syndromes (FSS) include fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and others. In FSS patients, merely viewing negative affective pictures can elicit increased physical symptoms. Our aim was to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying such negative affect-induced physical symptoms in FSS patients. Thirty patients with fibromyalgia and/or IBS and 30 healthy controls (all women) watched neutral, positive and negative ...